On UI inconsistency in iOS 5

Nice way to ruining Job's way.
And it's not about sentimental.
Do you think by changing the extremely familiar UI to *something very-not-apple*
will attract more customer??? Losing it, perhaps.

You see, if they want something less organized, they can turn to Android, Windows, Symbian, or even Palm OS.
(where rules meant to be broken - or perhaps, there's no rule at all)

Somebody must be fired for this.

Oh yeah, maybe they forget the mantra SIMPLICITY + CONSISTENCY = MONEY.
That's why apple product WAS able to hypnotize millions of users ranging from age 7 to 70.
They become familiar & instantly recognize each and every apple products from its design, its box, its user interface, even to its shiny lil button that appear in itunes, ipad, iphone, mac os.

Sense of FAMILIARITY, UNIFORMITY that makes users crave more.
That's why iphone has monotone design and nokia has gazzilions model.
That's why Apple generate income US$ 25.922 billion while Nokia €1.850 billion

Now the post-Jobs-Apple team becomes snobby, wild, and disoriented;
they pursue their ego instead of user perspective.

First they destroy the UI, maybe next they destroy the physical design.

I'd really like to see what Apple will become in the next 5 or 10 years.

JOBS would be rolling in his grave now. He's very well known for his extreme consistency. It's transformed in every detail, from the design, to the user interface, even the box of its products!! AND THAT'S WHAT MAKES MILLIONS OF USER BECOMES DEVOTED of apple product. And that what makes Apple once bigger than Shell.

Well, since the control freak, perfectionist, yet visionary Jobs died, i guess Apple will start making camera again, or maybe dishwasher or vacuum cleaner, and eventually go bankrupt again. Some people just don't get it.

If you're complaining about simple stuff like a freaking UI difference from iPad and iPhone/Ipod Touch then you're an idiot. If you find it difficult to use it because one little button isn't where it once was then you should go buy a flip phone and go sit in a corner. Cry Babies!

What's worse about all this is that UI consistency used to be a hallmark of the Apple user experience. It was a major part of the reason for ownership and of what made Apple products both a pleasure and more productive to use. Now Apple—the Forstall team, pointedly—seems hell-bent on dumbing-down the software to the lowest common denominator, while requiring of users the additional intelligence required to catalog and recall the differences between app designs across platforms. Talk about losing the vision and dropping the ball. This is the kind of thing that silently threatens Apple's leadership position as it slowly erodes one of its primary advantages. Somebody needs to whip that boy.

good call with the Radical Face.

And the top of the flop is Apple's new design of the music icon. Uhhh very ugly.
I want the good old ipod icon back!

jo jacobs - mutlimedia artist

Why does the linen necessarily have to mean underneath? Why can't it just be a generic background for anything that's auxiliary? In that sense, it fits in just fine. It also has a gradient and drop shadow so it's obvious that it's a top layer. I hardly think it's confusing that way. All that being said, however, I'd like to see viable alternatives if something else might be better.

I agree that the new Music app on the iPad is frustrating.
- On the iPhone, when you click shuffle, it turns blue which clearly stands out as being selected from the white buttons.
- On the iPad, when you click shuffle, it turns black so it is very hard to tell if black or white is selected.

The fancy stacked album covers are a cute idea in theory, however:
- They lag suprisingly bad even on an iPad 2 if you have a few thousand songs.
- On the list of playlists, the first 12 stacks are your genius playlists for different genres even though there is nothing indicating this, then the rest of your playlists are listed in alphabetical order, so if you look at it at first glance, it just looks like the playlist called "All" that should be first in the list is missing

Since we're on the subject, here are two other complaints I have had:
- Since the first day the iPod came out 10 years ago, why don't they make year an important piece of data. I understand there may be space limitations on the iPhone, but on the iPad, they have plenty of room. Why can't I browse by year? Instead I create smart playlists for each year which bring my iTunes to a crawl.
- Why can't they show the outlined star ratings that they use in iTunes for when you have rated the album, but not rated the song yet. There is no way to create a playlist of "unrated" songs if you have already rated the albums, and it isn't clear if the rating is real when listening on an iPad or an iPhone.

I'm afraid I have to argue with your music app complaint. Why would you want exactly the same UI on the iPad as on the iPhone? You have all this extra screen real-estate, having a giant text-based table view to list your music on an iPad would be a crime. This is the reason all the Android tablets are failing - they don't have tablet specific apps. I think the music app on the iPad in iOS 5 is a major step ahead from the one that came before it.